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On this day: July 11

2009: Italian-Canadian boxer Arturo Gatti, who won world championships designated by two different boxing boards in two different weight classes, is found dead in a hotel room in Ipojuca, Brazil, at age 37. Gatti, an inductee of the International Boxing Hall of Fame, compiled a career record of 40 wins (31 by knockout) and nine losses. The Brazilian authorities initially ruled Gatti's death a homicide, with his widow initially arrested in connection with his death, but after further studies ruled it was a suicide.

2008: Michael E. DeBakey, the world-renowned cardiac surgeon, innovator and scientist, dies at age 99 in Houston, Texas. A pioneer in the development of an artificial heart, DeBakey also was one of the first to perform coronary artery bypass surgery and performed the first successful carotid endarterectomy in 1953. He also led the team that completed the first simultaneous multi-organ transplant from one donor to four recipients in 1968.

2008: Apple releases the iPhone 3G.

2007: Lady Bird Johnson, who was first lady from 1963 to 1969 as the wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson, dies at age 94 in West Lake Hills, Texas. She was a lifelong advocate for beautifying the nation's cities and highways and the Highway Beautification Act was informally known as Lady Bird's Bill. She also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest U.S. civilian honors.

2006: A total of 209 people are killed in a series of seven train bomb blasts in Mumbai, India. The attacks, which also injured another 700 people, were carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba and Students Islamic Movement of India, according to Mumbai authorities.

2000: Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich is the first witness to testify at a U.S. Senate hearing over copyright law issues concerning free sharing of music files on websites such as Napster and MP3.com.

1998: U.S. Air Force Lt. Michael Blassie, a casualty of the Vietnam War, is laid to rest near his Missouri home. He had been positively identified from his remains that had been enshrined in the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington, Va.

1989: English actor, director and producer Laurence Olivier, regarded by many to be the greatest actor of the 20th century, dies of renal failure at the age of 82 in Ashurst, West Sussex, England. Olivier is known for his three Shakespeare films as actor-director, 1944's "Henry V," 1948's "Hamlet" and 1955's "Richard III." He was nominated for a total of 12 Academy Awards, winning Best Actor for "Hamlet." He also received an honorary Oscar in 1947 for the "outstanding achievement" of bringing "Henry V" to the screen and another honorary Oscar in 1979 for his entire body of work. Besides his Shakespeare roles, Olivier played many other roles on stage and screen, including roles in movies such as "Wuthering Heights," "Rebecca," "Spartacus," "Sleuth," "Marathon Man," "A Bridge Too Far" and "The Boys from Brazil."

1985: Nolan Ryan becomes the first major-league pitcher to earn 4,000 strikeouts in a career.

1979: America's first space station, Skylab, is destroyed as it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean.

1975: Rapper and actress Lil' Kim, the only female rapper besides Missy Elliott to have at least three platinum albums, is born Kimberly Denise Jones in Brooklyn, New York. Some of her best known songs include "Get Money," "No Time," "Crush on You," "Not Tonight" and "Magic Stick."

1969: David Bowie's "Space Oddity" single is released in the U.K.

1960: "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee is first published.

1959: Joan Baez makes her first recording, a duet with Bob Gibson that was recorded live at the Newport Folk Festival.

1956: Actress Sela Ward, best known for the TV series "Sisters," "Once and Again" and "CSI: NY," is born in Meridian, Mississippi.

1955: The first class for the U.S. Air Force Academy is sworn in at a temporary site at Denver's Lowry Air Base while the permanent site is under construction near Colorado Springs. Here cadets from the first class line up for physical training.

1953: Professional boxer Leon Spinks, best known for his February 1978 upset of Muhammad Ali, is born in St. Louis, Missouri. Spinks won the undisputed world heavyweight championship by beating Ali in only his eighth professional match. However, he was stripped of the WBC title after fighting Ali in an unapproved rematch seven months later, which he lost by a 15-round unanimous decision. He also won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1976 Olympic Games and finished his pro career with a record of 26 wins (14 by knockout), 17 losses and three draws.

1946: Dean Martin records his first four songs, "Which Way Did My Heart Go," "All of Me," "I Got the Sun in the Morning" and "The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi." The first two tracks were the A and B sides, respectively, of his first single release.

1937: Composer George Gershwin, whose best works include the orchestral compositions "Rhapsody in Blue" and "An American in Paris" as well as the opera "Porgy and Bess," dies from a brain tumor at age 38 in Los Angeles, California.

1921: Former U.S. President William Howard Taft is sworn in as the 10th chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the only person to ever be both a president and chief justice.

1920: Actor Yul Brynner, best known for roles in such movies as "The King and I," "The Magnificent Seven" and "The Ten Commandments," is born Yuliy Borisovich Briner in Vladivostok, Far Eastern Republic (present-day Primorsky Krai, Russia). He died of lung cancer at age 65 on Oct. 10, 1985.

1914: Babe Ruth makes his debut in Major League Baseball, pitching the Boston Red Sox to victory.

1899: E. B. White, best known for the children's novels "The Trumpet of the Swan," "Charlotte's Web" and "Stuart Little," is born in Mount Vernon, New York. He was also known as co-author of the English language style guide "The Elements of Style," which is commonly known as "Strunk & White."

1895: The Lumière brothers (Auguste Lumière on the left and Louis Lumière on the right) demonstrate film technology to scientists.

1889: Tijuana, Mexico, is founded.

1864: During the Civil War, Confederate forces attempt to invade Washington, D.C., in the Battle of Fort Stevens.

1859: Westminster's Big Ben rings for the first time in London.

1804: U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounds former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Hamilton was carried to the home of William Bayard on the Manhattan shore, where he died at 2 p.m. the next day.

1798: The United States Marine Corps is re-established; it had been disbanded after the American Revolutionary War.

1796: The United States takes possession of Detroit from Great Britain under terms of the Jay Treaty. Some consider this date to be the "real" birthday of Detroit.

1767: John Quincy Adams, the sixth U.S. president from 1825 to 1829, is born in a part of Braintree, Massachusetts, that is now Quincy, Massachusetts. The son of former President John Adams and Abigail Adams, he was elected a U.S. representative from Massachusetts after leaving office, serving for the last 17 years of his life. He is, so far, the only president later elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

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